Category Archives: Direct Selling

QNet is a marketing company with headquarters in Hong Kong. It is a company that has been in operation for the last 17 years. QNet is a direct selling company that relies heavily on the online platform. With future growth prospects, the company started from humble beginnings with its primary market being South East Asia. Over time, it has expanded its operations and increased its product range.

Currently, the company operates in the Middle East, India, and Europe. It also operates in East Africa, West Africa, and North Africa. This is in addition to Central Asia and Russia. It offers over 30 products that fall into 9 categories. They include skin care, nutrition, and wellness products. It also offers Swiss jewelry and watches.

QNet has been in the lead of advocating for laws that govern direct selling. Such advocacy has been undertaken in markets like India. The advocacy has centered on making the government set up an independent body to regulate the direct selling industry within the Indian market. With such regulations in place, the market becomes fair, thus encouraging healthy competition between different organizations. The Indian market is considered quite challenging. Regulations in this market will go a long way in improving the market dynamics and give other companies the opportunity to trade with minimal barriers. QNet plans to set up its production base in India owing to the immense revenue prospects from its operations in the country.

A group of friends, who put great effort despite several challenges, founded QNet. One such individual is Joseph Bismark. He is the current Managing Director of the Qi Group. He believes in a strong teamwork in addition to helping people achieve their potential. He is a talented, versatile and dynamic leader who contributed greatly in laying a strong foundation for the company. His preferred style of management is being open and consultative. His use of spirituality to management is attributed to his unique upbringing.
At Ashram, Bismark stayed and learnt different lessons until the age of seventeen when he left for home. The experiences he got from the monks helped shape his management style when he got to the corporate world. Over the years, Bismark has shown respect and has been helping people grow and achieve their potential. He believes in the power of giving to the less privileged members of the society, thus started RYTHM, which is the social responsibility organ of the company.

The Rise of QNET and Its Drawbacks from Regulations

The internet allowed companies such as QNET to operate in a borderless manner through their ecommerce platform that seen them reach more than 100 countries. With a heart for families and communities, they provide their distributors, who are known as Independent Representatives (IR), with opportunities to become self-sufficient and raise their standards of living.

QNET’s Chairperson, Donna Imson-Lecaroz says in their “This is QNET” youtube video, “We were people on a mission. We really believed in what we had set out to do, which is that we wanted to change lives.”

In 1998, Vijay Eswaran and Joseph Bismark founded the company QNET. It has 25 offices and agency partnerships worldwide. They embrace cultural diversity as they have their leaders and employees coming from 30 different countries as they sell to customers in more than 100 countries. They’ve got 6 global logistical hubs: Netherlands, India, Malaysia, Russia, Turkey and UAE.

Joseph Bismark continues to live with the same principles that helped found QNET. He lives by the principles of Vedic and is a strong believer in positive thinking. This he learnt while practicing martial arts which he says helped him remain focused and positive. He ensures that he lives by these principles every day; understanding people, inspire people to take charge and treat everyone with respect.

QNET had been manufacturing their watches in India and wished to enlarge their operations there by producing consumer goods and electronics. Production in India would give them a cost benefit of between 8 and 12 percent said Suresh Thimiri, CEO of a QNET franchise in India. They welcomed anyone in India who had something unique to offer them, a sale platform for their product.

Despite having done well in India, 2013 had been a rough year for QNET. The pressure on making changes came from what they termed as archaic PCMCS (Banning) Act, 1978, which acted as a catalyst for a volatile market. They complained it made it difficult to differentiate genuine from fraudulent companies in the business.

Dave Osh, who was the CEO of QNET back in 2013, pointed out that India lacked guidelines for the multi-level marketing sector. In 2014, they welcomed the initiative by the government of India to amend laws governing direct selling business and called for setting up a regulator to govern the business. They pointed out fast growing economies in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand had specific statues that regulated and facilitated direct selling.